siret

The town's current local council has the following political composition, according to the results of the 2020 local elections:{{Cite web|language=ro|url=https://prezenta.roaep.ro/locale27092020/data/json/sicpv/pv/pv_vs_final.json|format=Json|title=Rezultatele finale ale alegerilor locale din 2020|publisher=Autoritatea Electorală Permanentă|access-date=2020-11-02}}

The town of Siret is located at the north-eastern limit of Suceava County, {{convert|2|km|0|abbr=off}} from the border with Ukraine. It is one of the main border crossing points in the north of Romania, having both a road border post and a rail connection.

Vicșani railway station is west of Siret and functions as the border control point for rail crossings between Romania and the border transit station at Vadul-Siret railway station in Ukraine. The rail is on a standard gauge on the Romanian side and continues as a Russian-style broad gauge into Ukraine. Siret is one of the few places in Romania which provides a gauge change equipment, allowing transportation without transfer.

Siret is situated halfway between Chernivtsi and Suceava, on the right bank of the Siret River. The European route E85 crosses the city.

File:Biserica Sf. Treime din Siret13.jpg

During the period 1211–1225, on a hill near Siret a fortress was built by the Teutonic Knights. The town and the Teutonic castle were destroyed by the Tatars in 1241. The first document of Siret dates back to 1339, according to some historical sources. Seret is mentioned as a Russian city in Wallachia in the List of Russian cities (1370-1390). The town was the capital of the former principality of Moldavia, in the late 14th{{nbsp}}century.

The Imperial Russian Army occupied the town in 1770, and, as a consequence, an epidemic of cholera broke out. Together with the rest of Bukovina, Siret was under the imperial rule of the Habsburg monarchy (later Austria-Hungary) from 1775 to 1918.

During the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1774-1918), Siret was a city with a number of important Ukrainian institutions: branches of the Ruska Besida in Bukovina and the Ukrainska Shkola society, the Ukrainian Bursa, etc.{{cite web|title=Seret|url=http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CS%5CE%5CSeret.htm|publisher=Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine|access-date=22 June 2021|archive-url=https://archive.today/20210625130436/http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CS%5CE%5CSeret.htm|archive-date=25 June 2021}}

During World War II, Siret was captured on 3{{nbsp}}April 1944 by Soviet troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front in the course of the Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive.

File:Biserica Nasterea Sf. Fecioare Maria din Siret16.jpg in downtown Siret, belonging to the bygone Bukovina German community of the town.]]

Given the 14th century decline of the Byzantine Empire as Orthodox regional superpower-ally and Latin mendicant orders missions since the 13th century, the prince Bogdan I of Moldavia obtained virtual independence in 1359 as founding voivode (autonomous prince), seeking aid and protection from Poland, welcomed Latin missionaries, Francescans (founding a monastery at Siret in 1340) and Dominicans. His son and indirect successor Lațcu of Moldavia (1365-1373) promised Rome his and the people's conversion to Catholicism and asked Pope Urban V to send missionaries and erect a Latin diocese in his principality's capital, Siret, which happened in 1371, initially directly subject to the Holy See until 1412 when it was made suffragan of the Archbishopric of Lviv (Lwów in Polish; now in Ukraine).

File:Siret Holocaust memorial, Holon cemetery, Israel.jpg

This Roman Catholic Diocese of Siret started to decline in 1388 when prince Petru of Moldavia transferred the Moldavian voivode's capital from Siret to Suceava, and was effectively suppressed, but from circa 1418, the Holy See erected another Moldavian bishopric, the Diocese of Baia, which inherited its territory ({{circa}} 1434).

There was a Jewish community by the mid-16th century. Zionist activity began at the turn of the 20th{{nbsp}}century, a time when most of the local Jews worked in commerce. From 1912 to 1918, the mayor was Jewish and the town council included Jews. During World War{{nbsp}}I, Jews fled in advance of the Imperial Russian Army, and found their property destroyed when they returned. After the union of Bukovina with Romania, the new authorities revoked licenses for Jewish members of the free professions and removed Jewish officials from their posts. In 1930, there were 2,121 Jews or 14% of the town's population. In 1936, Baruch Hager of the Vizhnitz dynasty was named rabbi and opened a yeshiva. During the interwar period, there was activity by Zionist youth movements. On June{{nbsp}}20, 1941, just before Romania's entry into World War{{nbsp}}II, the authorities of the Ion Antonescu regime forced the Jews of Siret to march to Dornești before transporting them to Craiova and Calafat and finally Transnistria (see The Holocaust in Romania). Soviet troops liberated 460 Siret Jews there in 1944; 400 of them subsequently left for Palestine.Shmuel Spector, Geoffrey Wigoder (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust: Seredina-Buda-Z, p. 1186-87. NYU Press, 2001, {{ISBN|978-081-4793-78-7}}

Today, most of the population is Romanian Orthodox, with Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, Greek-Catholic, and several Evangelical Christian minorities.

{{Historical populations

|source = Austrian and Romanian census data and/or official estimates

|1910 |7,948

|1930 |9,905

|1948 |8,058

|1956 |5,664

|1966 |8,018

|1977 |8,264

|1992 |10,071

|2002 |9,329

|2011 |7,721

|2021 |6,708

}}

Siret reached its peak population in 1992, when more than 10,000 people were living within the town limits. In 2016, Siret had a population of {{circa}} 10,000 inhabitants.{{cite web|url=http://www.insse.ro/cms/ro/content/popula%C5%A3ia-rom%C3%A2niei-pe-localitati-la-1-ianuarie-2016|title=Populaţia României pe localitati la 1 ianuarie 2016|date=6 June 2016|access-date = 27 October 2017|publisher = INSSE|language=ro}}

At the 2021 census, the town had a population of 6,708. According to the 2011 census data, 7,721 inhabitants lived in Siret, a decrease from the figure recorded at the 2002 census, when the town had a population of 9,329 inhabitants. In 2011, of the total population, 95.85% were ethnic Romanians, 2.55% Ukrainians, 0.72% Poles, 0.42% Germans (Bukovina Germans), and 0.28% Russians (Lipovans). Siret is the eleventh most populated urban locality in Suceava County.

• Yitzhak Artzi - Israeli politician
• Elisabeth Axmann - Romanian-German poet
• Mykhailo Mykhailyuk Ilkovych - Ukrainian poet
• Elisabeta Lipă - Romanian rower
• Ivan Pavlovich Maksimovich - Ukrainian Colonel of the UGA
• Antin Varivoda - Ukrainian Commander of the Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen; Colonel of the Ukrainian Galician Army

Siret is a member of the Douzelage, a unique town twinning association of 24 towns across the European Union. This active program began in 1991, and regular events, such as a produce market from each of the other countries{{clarify|date=November 2015}} and festivals.{{cite web |url=http://www.douzelage.org/ |title=Douzelage.org: Home |publisher=www.douzelage.org |access-date=October 21, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100217044329/http://www.douzelage.org/ |archive-date=February 17, 2010 }}{{cite web |url=http://www.douzelage.org/index.php?id=15 |title=Douzelage.org: Member Towns |publisher=www.douzelage.org |access-date=October 21, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090406142434/http://www.douzelage.org/index.php?id=15 |archive-date=April 6, 2009 }} Discussions regarding membership are also in hand with three additional towns (Agros in Cyprus, Škofja Loka in Slovenia, and Tryavna in Bulgaria).

{{See also|List of twin towns and sister cities in Romania}}

Siret is twinned with:

{{colbegin|colwidth=22em}}

• {{flagicon|ESP}} Altea, Spain - 1991
• {{flagicon|GER}} Bad Kötzting, Germany - 1991
• {{flagicon|ITA}} Bellagio, Italy - 1991
• {{flagicon|IRL}} Bundoran, Ireland - 1991
• {{flagicon|FRA}} Granville, France - 1991
• {{flagicon|DEN}} Holstebro, Denmark - 1991
• {{flagicon|BEL}} Houffalize, Belgium - 1991
• {{flagicon|NED}} Meerssen, Netherlands - 1991
• {{flagicon|LUX}} Niederanven, Luxembourg - 1991
• {{flagicon|GRE}} Preveza, Greece - 1991
• {{flagicon|POR}} Sesimbra, Portugal - 1991
• {{flagicon|UK}} Sherborne, United Kingdom - 1991
• {{flagicon|FIN}} Karkkila, Finland - 1997
• {{flagicon|SWE}} Oxelösund, Sweden - 1998
• {{flagicon|AUT}} Judenburg, Austria - 1999
• {{flagicon|POL}} Chojna, Poland - 2004
• {{flagicon|HUN}} Kőszeg, Hungary - 2004
• {{flagicon|LVA}} Sigulda, Latvia - 2004
• {{flagicon|CZE}} Sušice, Czech Republic - 2004
• {{flagicon|EST}} Türi, Estonia - 2004
• {{flagicon|SVK}} Zvolen, Slovakia - 2007
• {{flagicon|LTU}} Prienai, Lithuania - 2008
• {{flagicon|MLT}} Marsaskala, Malta - 2009
• {{flagicon|POL}} Dębica, Poland{{cite web|url=http://www.wrobel-druk.pl/europa/index.php?sId=2&id_cat=6&strona=6|title=Partnerstwo Samorządów Siłą Europy|access-date=2013-08-13|work=Europa Miast|language = pl}}

{{colend}}

File:Statuia Margaretei Muşat1.jpg|Statue of Margareta Mușat in downtown Siret

File:Scoala Petru Musat din Siret2.jpg|Petru Mușat High School

File:Spitalul din Siret.jpg|The Chronic Diseases Hospital

File:Gara veche din Siret.jpg|The Old Train Station

File:Casa Iacob Zadik din Siret.jpg|Iacob Zadik House

File:Casa S.F.Marian din Siret1.jpg|Simion Florea Marian House

File:Bustul lui Simeon Florea Marian din Siret.jpg|Simion Florea Marian Statue

File:Teodor V. Ştefanelli2.jpg|Teodor V. Ștefanelli Statue

File:Biserica Nasterea Sf. Fecioare Maria din Siret2.jpg|The Roman Catholic Church

File:Biserica Schimbarea la Faţă din Siret.jpg|The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

File:Biserica Sf. Constantin si Elena din Siret1.jpg|The Old Evangelical Church (now Orthodox)

File:Templul evreiesc din Siret3.jpg|The Jewish Temple

{{reflist}}

{{commons category|Siret}}

• {{in lang|ro}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20071013155200/http://www.primariasiret.ro/ Siret Town Hall official site]
• {{in lang|ro}} [http://www.siretromania.ro/ Siret unofficial site]
• {{in lang|ro}} [http://scoli.didactic.ro/latcu_voda Laţcu Vodă High School, Siret]
• {{in lang|ro}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20130818111752/http://spital-siret.ro The Chronic Diseases Hospital of Siret]
• {{in lang|ro}} [http://judetulsuceava.ro/localitati/orase/siret/ Suceava County site - Siret web page]
• {{in lang|ro}} [https://archive.today/20121208233536/http://picasaweb.google.com/EdwardTurJ/OldBukowinaPhotosSereth Photo Gallery - Old photos of Siret]

{{Suceava County}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Towns in Romania

Category:Populated places in Suceava County

Category:Former capitals of Romania

Category:Romania–Ukraine border crossings

Category:Jewish communities in Romania

Category:Duchy of Bukovina

Category:Localities in Southern Bukovina

Category:Holocaust locations in Romania

Category:Polish communities in Romania

Category:Market towns in Moldavia